In this episode we talk about how to use acceptance to feel empowered, build body positivity, get body confident and stop overthinking.

Episode Transcript

Note: The podcast is not scripted and is transcribed using software. The transcript is nearly verbatim but may not be exact and may include minor grammatical errors and edits for ease of reading.

Intro

Welcome to I Can, I Am, I Will. The world’s #1 podcast for confidence and self-empowerment. Today we’re going to continue our conversation on acceptance and we’re going to talk about the importance of acceptance and why it is something that you should work on.

My name is Lyndsey, I’m a competence and self-empowerment coach and if you are here to build your confidence and self-empowerment then you are in the right place.

Please like, share, comment, leave reviews for the podcast. I would really appreciate it, and it will really help me out, so thank you!

Acceptance and Empowerment

Yesterday I read a passage from Eckhart Tolle’s book, “A New Earth” and gave insight into his interpretation of acceptance. And today I wanted to talk more about acceptance and why it is so important.

So when I was working through a lot of things and building my empowerment and self-confidence acceptance was something that I heard about but I did not really know what it was. I kept reading about it in a whole bunch of different books that just kept coming up. And I started focusing on it, and I hated it because it can be tough to build acceptance—especially if you’ve never done it before or if you didn’t know what it was.

But acceptance is very important because what it does is it gives you power. Acceptance empowers you because when you accept something that “is” and you can accept that something that “is” actually “is” then you have the power to decide if you want to change it. If you want to change what is or you have the power to determine that what currently is cannot be changed and that you will want to say it was like surrender.

You will accept the thing that you cannot control. And when you accept things that you can control and when you acknowledge things you can’t control you will have an empowered state because you will be less stressed and less worried. There are so many times that we worry about things and we think about things that we can’t control.

And the idea, and the reason why I want to talk about acceptance, is because in episode 20 How to Stop Overthinking and in episode 21 when, or I’m sorry at an episode 19 How to Just Be Yourself and in episode 20 How to Stop Overthinking I was talking about acceptance and the concept of acceptance in both of those episodes.

Acceptance and Body Positivity

So when we talk about how to “just be yourself” a lot of just being yourself is accepting you for who you are. So it’s your acceptance of yourself for who you are instead of trying to change it.

For instance, for me body confidence and empowerment and body positivity really came from when I just accepted my body for what it is.

So it was working out and I just I love working out. But I wasn’t seeing reduction in like jiggle in certain places. And it would kind of annoy me. And especially my arms I was thinking, “Oh my God like I’m like 17% body fat at this point and I still have like all of this jiggle under my arms. And I still have this like, this like pouch of belly fat.”

And one day I thought, “you know, I’m doing the best I can here. And I mean, I could like cut down on the cookies and pizza, but you know you gotta live. But I’m like 17% body fat. I’m working out a lot. I’m drinking a lot of water, and it has to get to the point where I just accept that this is my body. And you can’t spot reduce fat. And my body holds fat in this particular way. And that is that.”

And that really that was that! Like I literally just accepted it. And then moved forward. So I used to hate when people, “say it is what it is.” And I felt that that was such like a passive pushover kind of thing. Now, I love that saying. Because to me that saying shows acceptance. It is what it is.

Acceptance and Body Confidence

My body it is what it is. I should be appreciating my body instead of focusing on spot reducing fat. Why do I even care? And that’s really where I had, where I got to. I started thinking about why do I even care about this. And I realized it was because of outside external pressure. But if I think about it to myself, like internally, do I really care? No, I don’t.

I love my body. It’s amazing. The human body is absolutely incredible. I mean, your brain and your nervous system, and your consciousness and your unconsciousness, and how everything is working together. It’s absolutely fascinating! Why am I staring in the mirror and just staring at flab under my arms? Why am I not appreciating the muscle that I was building?

So with that acceptance I was able. And I now appreciate my body for how it is even if I go up some weight or even if like I’m not feeling my look one day. I accept that this is me. This is who I am, and then I continue forward. And people ask me, they’re like “wow I love your attitude, and I just see you as such a confident person.” It’s because I have empowerment.

And accepting who I am not only internally or not only externally but internally as well. And we will get into that I guess in another episode. So now I’m talking about just like that external acceptance. Because we live in a culture that is obsessed with visuals and physical appearance. And it can encourage us to be obsessed with our own physical appearance and to compare ourselves to others.

What I want to tell you here and to suggest to you here is to work on accepting who you are and your body how it is. If you don’t like how your body is now, you can work on. Like going for walks and eating less calories or something like that to work on your body to work on your physical appearance. But I would also say to consider if you are just doing that because you saw someone else do it or is it something that you really want?

For instance, when I lost weight it was because I was feeling very sluggish. I gained a whole bunch of weight like really quick. Like 40 pounds in like 2 years. And I could just feel it all my clothes and I felt so sluggish. I didn’t feel like myself. That was my reason why I lost weight. And then when it got to the point where I lost as much as I wanted to and I still had jiggly arms I went the acceptance route and have not looked back.

Confident Close

Someone could literally come up to me and be like “you got jiggly arms.” I’d be like, “yeah, I know, cool.” Like thanks for pointing that out weirdo, build your communication skills. This is similar to how I was talking about acceptance in how to stop overthinking. So sometimes we say we’re overthinking but we’re thinking unproductively. And sometimes when we are thinking unproductively it’s because we’re not accepting something.

Acceptance takes time. It takes time to build. It is like a muscle. It takes time for you to build and to grow. It is a skill, a technique. It is a hard skill for life. So it takes some time to build up. But you can do it. And it will help you especially with the overthinking part. Because like I said, we’re not overthinking, we’re not thinking productively. And a reason why you may not be thinking productively is because you are not accepting something.

With a lack of acceptance can also come denial, which is a whole another mess. We can talk about that tomorrow.

We’re going to end with our I affirming statements.

Are you ready?

I can,

I am,

I will.

Have a great day!

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